Photographer - a dangerous profession: Night Caracas

Photographer Anton Zhdanov was in Latin America. Anton first arrived in Venezuela and there through his friends went to fixer'a - a person who helps journalists "on the spot" - obtains authorization accompanies a translator, deals with the local community. So "Fixer" for Anton was the 26-year-old resident of the capital, Caracas, a local journalism student Carlos. With Carlos Antonio was lucky - he was an executive for small and brought the photographer to the police and through their acquaintances - with local bandits. So get an interesting report about the night life of Caracas, on the slum areas "barrio", where criminals and the police are endless war.

Caracas's eight listed in the ranking of the most dangerous cities in the world, after the Iraqi Baghdad and Mogadishu, Somali. Every day on the streets killing an average of 30 people. The city is situated at an altitude of 1000 meters and is stretched between the mountains. It bisects the major transport routes, many kilometers of traffic jams here, even at five in the morning.

12 Photo: © Anton Zhdanov
Text: Ilya France
via drugoi





Motorized police Miranda State travels to every night duty in Petare. At the end of the road one can see one of the main mountain barrio - Morros - like a Christmas tree, it rises above the safe area of ​​Altamira, stuffed with banks, offices, restaurants and boutiques.



Crime, which adopted the scale of a national catastrophe, forcing the government to adopt special social programs. In recent years, Chavez barrio creates a sort of "committees of the poor" - "konsehos komunales." Committees released money from the budget, bypassing the bureaucracy - this has led to the great popularity among the majority of the population. The unemployed, the poor, but almost all the inhabitants of the barrio twice a month receive an allowance from the government of about $ 300 at the official rate, which, as we know, half real. The middle class is of a different opinion about such programs, saying that such a guaranteed social aid does not stimulate people to develop - no need to study, to work, you can do what you want, and if the money is not enough to kill and rob.



Young gangsters chosen area at the base of the radio tower on the other side of the hill - there are someone's motorcycle, to drink cheap rum and smoked marijuana. Basically, there is no young - can easily kill a person walking down the street because they neponravivshegosya appearance. As a rule, children from disadvantaged families, they are 15 to 20 years, weapons are easily worn under the shirt without worrying about what it can see.



In some neighborhoods Petare (Las Casitas, Mesuka, Karpitero, Nazareno, Reunion) immigrants make up the majority of the Colombian population. They hold the power of the spread of large quantities of cocaine in the small wholesale and then retail streams flowing down the slopes of the barrio in the "clean" part of Caracas. Here, the "snow" cheap and available anywhere else in the world - in areas where everyday lives, and on weekends resting middle class day cocaine buy at every corner for 20 bolivars ($ 4), at night, from the car window - forty . The main thing is to know who to approach.



Many police officers live with their families here in Petare, but not in the hills, and in the transition section, under the mountain, with asphalt streets and residential skyscrapers. Romance in choosing a profession, many completely absent, the decision to go to the police and the fight against crime is not taken due to high ideals. "This is a normal operation that was available to us after graduation, and for which at least something to pay," - said the guardian of the law.



Day in Petare one passenger shot another bus - trivial domestic quarrel in transport. But slum dwellers already know about the incident and wait for the police, who already has all the data of the offender. At home he is long gone, and the family, relatives and neighbors swear they know they do not know where he might be hiding. "Maybe someone has hidden. Until now some people in the barrios, including the young, the word - a murderer, a robber, a bandit equivalent word hero. " The police changed his mobile office several times a night. True, the residents themselves say, it does not help - the police where to go by, the criminals do not have a radius of a kilometer.



These types who tried to flee were seized during the arrest of five purses, four "seduly" (identification card, passport replacement) and a pistol. The investigation and trial will be soon, and cheap lawyer if the bandits will not be funds to pay for his own defense counsel, the state will provide.



Iron Blanco (right), senior inspector of the paramilitary police of Miranda state, is the law for 13 years. The new social role of the police - it should not kill people in the barrio without trial as before. In order to survive and feed their families, many police rampage, killing every armed and then selecting him everything of value, but at the risk of being killed by bandits. Inspector true "new line", Hugo Chavez, who proclaimed the restructuring of the police from a purely repressive body structure to help to carry out a social function. "Many people thought we were murderers. Now we need to change this stereotype, "- says the inspector, inspecting selected someone outside the gun.



Police patrol the barrio 24 hours a day, stopping every suspicious person.



The hospital social program "Barrio d'entro" ("in the barrio"), which aims to bring to the criminal slums of high quality and free health care and "cultural education". In the reception abandoned on a stretcher on the floor is a young Creole - he was beaten in the street when the national guard patrol passed by and picked him unconscious. Who beat him and that he refuses to speak. The inhabitants of the barrio is not a knock on offenders, and beat him, perhaps, for the cause.



Mortuaries district hospitals barrio never empty, doctors are reluctant to allow outsiders here - every hour for the next victim of street violence come relatives. They silently leaning on an unidentified body, until the last second hoping to agree with the graphs in the "missing".



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